Hapten-binding antibodies can be applied as capturing modules for therapeutic and diagnostic applications. For example, hapten-bound entities such as fluorophores, chelating reagents, peptides, nucleic acids, proteins, lipids, nanoparticles, and many other agents can react with hapten-binding antibodies and antibody derivatives. This enables effective detection of such ‘payloads’, as well as capturing, accumulation at desired locations, crosslinking and other antibody-mediated effects. Since the features and composition of haptens may influence the composition and “behavior” of hapten-bound entities (incl. size, solubility, activity, biophysical properties, PK, biological effects and more), it is highly desired to develop a variety of different hapten-binding entities. Thereby, it is possible to match a selected hapten with a given payload to generate optimized hapten conjugates. Subsequently, optimal hapten-binding entities can be combined with said conjugates to generate optimal antibody-hapten-payload complexes. It is further desired to have hapten-binding entities such as antibody derivatives which are humanized. This enables applications with significantly reduced risk of interference such as immunogenicity in therapeutic applications. The antibodies that are described here bind biotin derivatives (but not unmodified biotin). These antibodies are termed in this document ‘biotin-binding’ or ‘anti-biotin’ antibodies.
In WO 00/50088 biotinylated-chemokine antibody complexes are reported.
Kohen, F., et al., report the preparation and properties of anti-biotin antibodies (Methods Enzymol. 279 (1997) 451-463. Monoclonal anti-biotin antibodies simulate avidity in the recognition of biotin is reported by Bagci, H., et al. (FEBS Lett. 322 (1993) 47-50). Cao, Y., et al., report the development of a bispecific monoclonal antibody as a universal immunoprobe for detecting biotinylated macromolecules (J. Immunol. Meth. 220 (1998) 85-91).
In WO 01/34651 antibodies binding a non-naturally occurring enantiomer (L-Biotin) and their use as targeting agents are reported.
Dakshinamurti et al. report the production and characterization of monoclonal antibody to biotin (Biochem. J. 237 (1986) 477-482). A comparison of the binding of biotin and biotinylated macromolecular ligands to an anti-biotin monoclonal antibody and to streptavidin is reported by Vincent, P., et al. (J. Immunol. Meth. 165 (1993) 177-182). Berger, M., et al. (Biochem. 14 (1975) 2338-2342) report the production of antibodies that bind biotin and inhibit biotin containing enzymes.